In our last installment, we commented on the Argentine Republic’s recent immigration reforms. That rather anodyne change prompted the Argentine security minister to have to deny that a wall with Bolivia was in the cards. Now it seems that the American press has ingenuously picked up on the hysteria of its Argentine counterparts, with the New York Times reporting, “Argentina’s Trump-Like Immigration Order Rattles South America.”
The story is fine; the headline is misleading. First, the rest of South America does not care. President Macri is not President Trump, picking needless fights with the neighbors.
Second, the actual content of the decree (which we discussed here) is lukewarm by any standard.
Third, unlike our presidential decrees, this decree is neither of doubtful legality, poorly-drafted, nor partisan.
What is true, though, is that Macri’s ties to Trump are bringing him under greater scrutiny than he would face otherwise. Trump damages every Latin American leader who tries to make nice: in Macri’s case, the damage came from rumors that the U.S. president-elect asked him to expedite a building permit. (Go google it.) The irony is that the tumult is pushing the Argentine Republic farther from the United States. The country now wants closer ties with Mexico. Macri haswanted to reduce Chinese influence; now he is accelerating contracts with them for nuclear power plants.
Of course, the U.K. has also managed to score an own-goal as far as Argentina is concerned. The Falkland Islands are single-minded in wanting to preserve their access to the European market, for obvious reasons. But should they fail, then Argentina now stands ready to offer them access to Mercosur. That will not lead to an Argentine takeover if the Falklanders accept, but it would be one hell of a British own-goal.
Finally, Buenos Aires has been consumed by the debate over the tetazo: a march by Argentine women to protest unequal treatment under the law. It was not really about the right of women to go topless, although that law is and should be a focal point for unequal treatment. Differential laws like that are stupid and unjust. For example, a serious law would ban people from going shirtless in public spaces, with an exception for those who need to breast-feed children. But neither Argentina nor the United States, sadly, is a serious country in this respect ... and over subjects far more grave than what you can or cannot wear in public. Sometimes that needs to be pointed out by something that appears to be non-serious which is most certainly not.
How would Argentina offer the Falklands access to Mercosur? I'm curious as to the practicalities since Argentina could probably offer limited access to the Argentine market alone on its own, but offering access to Mercosur would likely require the cooperation of Argentina's Mercosur partners (and given that Venezuela is now suspended from the organization I suppose there will be a debate over whether such access is legal without Venezuela's approval much as how there was debate over Venezuela's accession during Paraguay's suspension).
I suppose Argentina could offer to push for associate membership for the Falklands using some legal gymnastics to get around the fact that Argentina would be pushing for a territory it does not recognize as a separate entity to be offered associate membership in an organization where Argentina as a whole (and it's territory which theoretically includes Las Malvinas) enjoys full membership. Perhaps something along the lines of the Taiwan/Chinese Taipei model.
It would be rather ironic if Brexit cut the Falklands off from the European Single Market for their squid exports only for Falklands accession as an associate member of Mercosur and a Mercosur/EU free trade deal to restore it (assuming that the UK goes through a hard Brexit with no FTA negotiated between the UK and EU). Now THAT would be one helluva British own-goal.
Posted by: JH | February 11, 2017 at 10:46 AM